The present invention relates to cardiac imaging, and more particularly, to propagation of myocardial infarction from delayed enhanced cardiac imaging to cine magnetic resonance imaging.
Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been proven effective for determining patient-specific myocardial motion and functional information using cine imaging, as well as for detection of myocardial infarction using delayed enhanced MRI (DE-MRI). Recent studies have compared myocardial tissue viability revealed in the DE-MRI to the functional deficits measured with cine MRI, showing the so-called “peri-infarction zone” defined in DE-MRI is correlated well with the dysfunctional myocardial region defined in cine. This information is potentially valuable for reperfusion therapy, as regional motion of an infarction zone defined before the therapy is assessed to evaluate the recovery of myocardium.
Although the clinical value of joint DE-MRI and cine image assessment is exhibited, standard clinical cardiac MR protocols typically acquire two sets of images across multiple measurements with variant imaging plane prescription and multiple breath-holdings. Misalignment and local deformation often appear between cine and DE-MRI, even if the imaging plane remains unchanged for two acquisitions by careful prescription, mainly due to inconsistent cardiac phases used for acquiring cine and DE-MRI, imperfect cardiac gating and respiratory motion. It is more problematic for patients with arrhythmias, as unstable cardiac cycles make it unreliable to identify the matching cine frame acquired in the same cardiac cycle as the DE-MRI.